president obama saying now a deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff could be about a week away. there is just one catch. he says republicans have to accept the, quote: reality as he puts it that tax rates are going up for the richest americans. something g.o.p. leaders are calling a deal breaker. >> we're not insisting on rates just out of spite or out of any kind of partisan bickering. but rather because we need to raise a certain amount of revenue. we can probably solve this. it's not that tough. but we need that conceptual break through that says we need to do a balanced plan. >> we made a good faith offer to avert the fiscal crisis and that offer included significant spending cuts reforms and it included additional revenue. and frankly, it was a balanced approach mr. president has been asking for. now we need a response from the white house. >> they have 27 days to prevent automatic tax hikes and spending cuts from kicking in on new year's day. ed henry live at the white house for us. ed, we are hearing the president and house speaker john boehner actually talked by phone no